Recipes / Discussions on cooking from Team-BHP Master Chefs

This is a discussion on Recipes / Discussions on cooking from Team-BHP Master Chefs within Shifting gears, part of the Around the Corner category; Was looking around to find a good vessel to cook Biryani in... As I learnt to make it only in ...

Was looking around to find a good vessel to cook Biryani in... As I learnt to make it only in a cooker from my mom. Now realized that is not the traditional way, and hence wanted to explore into handi or cooking pot prepared Biryani.

Would a traditional cooking pot give me better taste and a better Biryani?

PS: Did some reading on the internet, and found out that cooking using aluminium vessels is very dangerous for our health ! We have few aluminium pans at home - god knows if that is anodized or not.

Was looking around to find a good vessel to cook Biryani in... As I learnt to make it only in a cooker from my mom. Now realized that is not the traditional way, and hence wanted to explore into handi or cooking pot prepared Biryani.

Would a traditional cooking pot give me better taste and a better Biryani?

PS: Did some reading on the internet, and found out that cooking using aluminium vessels is very dangerous for our health ! We have few aluminium pans at home - god knows if that is anodized or not.

A)
First of all let me dispel your apprehensions regarding Aluminum pots. People have been cooking in Aluminum for over a hundred years. Most of the large size vessels for mass cooking are aluminum. Stainless steel the other alternative is not only more expensive, but has poor heat conduction, hence suffers from local hot spots and burnt food. All modern stainless steel pots are sandwich type, but even then they are no where near Aluminum in terms of uniform cooking and local hot spot burn resistant.

I had bought very thick gauge SS pots forty years ago. They are good enough for boiling liquids and storage, but hot spots and local burn are still there. Main pots for cooking are Aluminum and some of them date nearly 60 years.

What internet does is to purvey half truths. In case of aluminum if you use it for boiling highly acidic food - tomato sauce, amla or lime juice, a bit is leached, especially if you leave the acidic liquid in the pot. The amount leached depends on time so if your cooking is short then not much harm is done. Yes if you use Aluminum for storing these acidic juices then there is a problem. So in short Aluminum is fine for normal Indian cooking, just move the food within a couple of hours of finish of cooking. Do not use aluminum pots for long term storage of acidic liquids.

B)
I have cooked Biryani in all sorts of pots - 1/2 kg in SS rice pot and 2,3,4,5 kg (mutton) in Aluminum pots. As I usually cook Hyderabadi Kachhi Biryani, I need a lot of head room for the rice to swell and aromas to circulate. I have found that the ratio of height to diameter of large pots used by caterers (I have 8", 10", 12", 15" and 18" internal diameter) are ideal for biryani. The pots should be thick - 6mm or more and the lid reasonably heavy.

Handi used by some is a cumbersome pot to use, best suited for gravies. Biryani needs a wide mouth to minimize the rice breaking up while serving.

4KG mutton biryani in a 15" pot
LAyering Rice. The mutton is at the bottom
Done

B)
I have cooked Biryani in all sorts of pots - 1/2 kg in SS rice pot and 2,3,4,5 kg (mutton) in Aluminum pots. As I usually cook Hyderabadi Kachhi Biryani, I need a lot of head room for the rice to swell and aromas to circulate. I have found that the ratio of height to diameter of large pots used by caterers (I have 8", 10", 12", 15" and 18" internal diameter) are ideal for biryani. The pots should be thick - 6mm or more and the lid reasonably heavy.

Handi used by some is a cumbersome pot to use, best suited for gravies. Biryani needs a wide mouth to minimize the rice breaking up while serving.

Wow! thanks a lot for clearing my mind so well!! And amazing that we have a Biryani expert right here, in an automotive forum

The picture of your biryani is really mouth watering! Your recipes would be much appreciated and probably revered too

It wasn't a lot spicier, but it had a lot of depth ( ). Similarly the potato saagu at some places is mind blowing. Cannot seem to replicate it.

Depth :-) That's a novel way to describe it! A guess makes it one of those sambar where a lot of spices are ground and added ( araichu vitta sambar) . It isn't very spicy in the sense that it's eye watering but it sure is mouth watering.

The potatoes would be the freshest possible and that would add to the reasons for their taste.

Whenever I travel to Karnataka, Andhra pradesh or Kerala, I find the subtle regional variations appeal to the tongue. I guess you'd have the same reasons.

For grinded spices (wet or dry powdered), dry-roasting them before grinding in a mortal & pestle brings out the flavor spectacularly. Age-old trick and works like a million bucks!

I do this for all my preparations, and prefer freshly ground spices to packaged powdered ones. The taste is more nuanced (can be subtly tweaked by level of roasting too) and individual flavors stand out, which is impossible to replicate with packaged stuff.